The removal of processing lubricants and associated contaminants is a significant aspect in the processing of surgical ligatures such as braided sutures, woven tapes and yarns. The difficulty in cleaning the surgical ligatures stems from the fact that the contaminants and lubricants can be trapped between the individual filaments of the yarn bundle in these surgical ligatures. In order to clean the ligature, a cleaning agent or solvent must permeate the crevices between the filaments of the yarn bundle. Typically, surgical ligatures have been cleaned by various batch methods, where the ligature is immersed in a bath for a predetermined amount of time sufficient to remove lubricants and contaminants from the fibers.
The present invention provides a solution to the above-mentioned problem by providing a device that continuously cleans yarn fibers, and which does not require any stoppage or interruption in the yarn manufacturing process in order to clean such ligatures.
Venturi devices, such as that disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,097,412; 3,462,813; 3,545,057; 3,577,614; 3,863,309; 3,881,231; 3,969,799; 3,979,805; 4,041,583; 4,096,612; 4,104,770; 4,157,605; 4,189,812 and 4,290,177; all incorporated herein by reference, have been used for texturizing yarns, but not for cleaning lubricants and contaminants from yarns.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a device for continuously cleaning a ligature.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a device for removing lubricants and contaminants during the processing of surgical ligatures.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide a method for continuously cleaning surgical ligatures moving through a device.
A further object of the invention is to provide a method for removing lubricants and contaminants during the processing of surgical ligatures.
These and other objects and advantages of the invention will become more fully apparent from the description and claims, which follow or may be learned by the practice of the invention.